AUSTRALIANS who contract Ebola would be unlikely to survive a more than 30 hour flight home from West Africa, the Abbott Government believes.

The Coalition is refusing to send health workers to the region, because there is currently no means to evacuate them should they become sick.

Even if they could, it’s understood the whole process to bring them home could be in the order of a week, given Australia’s remoteness.

The lengthy mission would involve having to find an available aircraft in West Africa — with an isolation unit — and then forming various agreements for locations to fly out of and refuel along the journey.

If a patient was already suffering a fever, it’s believed they might have passed to the excretion phase in that time.

Despite negotiations at the senior diplomatic level, no ally country has reached an agreement with Australia to guarantee to treat affected Australians in a different location.

Risky work ... A Doctors Without Borders (MSF), health worker in protective clothing holds a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment centre in Liberia. Photo by John Moore/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

Despite receiving a briefing on the situation, Labor has written to the Coalition calling for “immediate arrangements” to be made to deploy Australian Medical Assistance Teams to West Africa.

The Opposition also wants support to be given to other specialist doctors and nurses who are willing to travel to affected areas to prevent the spread of the disease.

He said it is unlikely sufferers “would survive” what would be at least a 30 hour flight home from West Africa.

“There is no advice available to me at the moment that we would have the capacity to give Australian health workers the health needs and medical needs if they contracted Ebola,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

Too dangerous ... Health Minister Peter Dutton said it is unlikely Ebola sufferers “would survive” what would be at least a 30 hour flight home from West Africa. Photo by Richard GoslingSource:News Corp Australia

“I am not prepared and the Government is not prepared to send Australian health workers into harm’s way without having 100 per cent assurance that we could provide those people with the support they deserve.”

Mr Dutton said about 30 Australians are currently working for NGO’s in the region.

Tony Abbott said his government won’t be sending health workers to West Africa, because there is no way to evacuate them should they become sick.

“What I am very reluctant to do is to direct Australian personnel into Ebola hot spots when we don’t have any means of effectively evacuating such personnel back to Australia and we have no commitments from other countries to treat them there either,” the Prime Minister said.

“I think it would be a little irresponsible of an Australian Government to order Australian personnel into this very dangerous situation if we didn’t have effective risk mitigation strategies in place and at the moment there is no way of doing that.”

The Coalition has so far pledged $18 million dollars to the cause.

But Ms Plibersek, the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, said it isn’t enough.

“It is in Australia’s interest that we help fight this virus while it still may be containable,” she told ABC Radio.

Time to step up ... AMA President Associate Professor Brian Owler says now is not the time to “put our heads in the sand” over Ebola.Source:News Corp Australia

Australian Medical Association President Brian Owler agreed, saying the government’s response to the Ebola crisis has so far been “inadequate”.

He insisted it’s important not to create panic, but now is not the time to “put our heads in the sand” and ignore the problem.

“Our government, particularly the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health, need to step up and make sure that Australia is prepared,” he told reporters in Melbourne.

Professor Owler expressed his surprise that the government hasn’t yet convened a meeting of experts to look at Australia’s preparedness.

They do want the government to make people go to West Africa, but there are some who are willing to volunteer, he said.

Safety first ... Medical staff members of the Croix Rouge NGO put on protective suits before collecting the corpse of a victim of Ebola in Monrovia. Pic: AFP PHOTO / PASCAL GUYOTSource:AFP

Labor: Australia must act to fight Ebola spread

The Opposition has today written to the government requesting “immediate arrangements” are made to deploy Australian Medical Assistance Teams to West Africa.

It also wants support to be given to other specialist doctors and nurses who are willing to travel to affected areas to prevent the spread of the disease.

Labor says the Australian contribution of $18 million to relief efforts is “not enough” and we should offer experienced personnel on the ground.

Negotiations should be held with international partner countries to put in place appropriate standby and evacuation management arrangements, it believes.

On Sunday Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said the Opposition was being “reckless” in calling for the government to send workers into West Africa “without treatment or evacuation capability”.

“In fact Mr Shorten and Ms Plibersek have both received briefings from senior officials from the Defence Department and the Health Department and they both know that Australia currently doesn’t have the capability to treat and evacuate back to Australia health workers,” she said.

“We have been working with other governments to see if we can gain the capability to treat and evacuate any Australian health workers who would be sent to West Africa but at this stage we’ve not been able to receive any guarantees.”

Grim task ... Health workers wearing protective gear wait to carry the body of a person suspected to have died from Ebola, in Monrovia, Liberia. Pic: AP Photo/Abbas DullehSource:AP

Are protection suits enough to protect from Ebola?

Meanwhile, infectious disease experts are questioning the adequacy of protection equipment being used by health workers treating Ebola victims as more health workers succumb to infection.

The World Health Organisation says so far more than 416 health care workers have been infected with Ebola and more than 233 have died.

Even nurses in Spain and the United States following strict infection control procedures have caught the deadly virus.

University of NSW infectious diseases expert Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Raina MacIntyre says this raises serious questions about the adequacy of infection control procedures.

“In West Africa, health workers are dying faster than their patients, illustrating the tragic price they pay for doing their jobs,” she said.

A volunteer in a protective suit looks on after spraying disinfectant outside a home, some 30 kilometres southeast of Freetown. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

She’s arguing at the very least P2/N95 respirator masks should be used in the suite of protective gear to help prevent infection instead of surgical masks.

In Australia our national guidelines recommend a fluid repellent surgical mask for routine care, a P2/N95 respirator mask is only recommended in more high risk procedures such as aerosol generating procedures.

Enough? ... A volunteer doctor who will travel to West Africa to help care for Ebola patients puts on an isolation suit during training offered by the German Red Cross. Picture: Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

“The CDC doesn’t say that we need hazmat suits. If this doesn’t change dramatically, we will picket every hospital in this country if we have to.” Executive director of the union RoseAnn DeMoro said this week.

A Red Cross worker takes off her protective suit after collecting a body of a person suspected of dying from the Ebola virus, from a house in the Liberian capital Monrovia. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

Public health experts and governments are insisting Ebola is hard to transmit and can only be transmitted by contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

Professor MacIntyre says there is, however, uncertainty about how you catch Ebola with studies showing pigs, primates and some humans have caught the disease without direct contact.

“There is plenty of uncertainty about transmission,” she told News Corp Australia.

They claim the all in one suits could help the disease spread because they are difficult to remove.

“Hazmat suits are like a big plastic overall with a breathing unit built in, they are quite sweaty and bulky,” says president of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control Belinda Henderson.

A protester takes part in a demonstration in support of Spanish nurse Teresa Romero infected with Ebola. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

Texan nurse ... Nina Pham, 26, who became the first person to contract the disease within the United States. Picture: APSource:AP

Unlike the US, health care workers in Australia have a buddy to watch them to remove protective equipment to catch any possible infection route.

They have to turn their gloves and gowns inside out to contain any infection on the equipment when they disrobe, Ms Henderson said.

Health care workers in West Africa are using even more intense infection control measures including plastic shoes and chlorine wash downs of their robes and overalls before they are removed but they are still getting infected.

Medical staff wearing protective suits and gloves parks outside of the apartment of the Spanish nurse infected with Ebola, where her dog remains in Madrid, Spain. Picture: APSource:AP

World Health Organisation assistant director general Dr Bruce Aylward said the number of cases of Ebola would reach 9,000 this week and the death rate had climbed from 50 to 70 per cent.

In the last for weeks there have been around 1,000 new cases a week and so far around 4,447 people have died from Ebola.

By the end of the year there could be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week, the WHO is predicting.

Gearing up ... Members of the Red Cross put on their protective suits as they get ready to collect the body of a person suspected of dying from the Ebola virus in the West Point district of the Liberian capital Monrovi. Pic: AFP PHOTO / PASCAL GUYOT.Source:AFP

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